Risk management by a neoliberal state: construction of new knowledge through lifelong learning in Japan

This article examines the current developments in Japan's lifelong learning policy and practices. I argue that promoting lifelong learning is an action that manages the risks of governance for the neoliberal state. Implementing a new lifelong learning policy involves the employment of a political technique toward integrating the currently divided and polarized Japanese population – popularly called kakusa – into the newly imagined collective, namely, atarashii kōkyō or the New Public Commons. Examining the macro policy discourse on Japan's educational policy, this article demonstrates Japan's inflections of neoliberal governmentality with the new distribution of responsibility between the state and the individuals through the construction of new knowledge supporting the New Public Commons. In fact, new knowledge is the epicenter of the national educational policy discourse aiming at generating social solidarity in local communities.     

A systematic form of Japanization in Okinawa: Japanese identity construction through a Japanization discourse in textbooks and a textbook guide

This research examines some modes of Japanization through education in Okinawa where Japanese influences on education have permeated after Japan’s annexation. I investigate how a book excerpt entitled Mizu no Tōzai, included in high school textbooks in Okinawa, constructs Japanese identity. Mizu no Tōzai functions as nihonjinron discourse, which is characterized by ‘Japanese culture,’ ‘Japanese uniqueness,’ and ‘Japaneseness.’ The ‘East-West’ dichotomy, depicted in this nihonjinron discourse, induces students to choose ‘Japan’/‘Japanese culture’ and become ‘Japanese.’ Practice sections of Mizu no Tōzai in textbooks as well as a textbook guide operate to be complicit in this Japanese identity construction. Through a critical analysis of discourse, I reveal that the nihonjinron discourse operating as official knowledge, in collusion with the other discursive texts, produces a position subjected to the discourse of Japanization within which Okinawans become ‘Japanese.’ I problematize these discursive texts as a systematic form of Japanizing Okinawans’ minds through education.     

Vulnerability and the neo-liberal youth citizen: a view from Australia

This article develops a critical discourse analysis of Australian youth and community policies, examined through a discussion of theoretical debates about citizenship and vulnerability. Informed by a Foucauldian genealogical approach, it explores citizenship, not in terms of rights and universal categories, but in terms of relational, situated and dividing practices. Two major relationships are examined: the relationship between local communities and citizens, including the relationship between space and citizenship; and the relational construction of virtuous and vulnerable citizens. Vulnerability can refer to negative difference and weakness and it can denote a compassionate disposition and openness to difference. It is argued that in neo-liberal policy discourses vulnerability becomes tied to a ‘conversion narrative’ that renders social–structural marginalisation an individual responsibility and re-inscribes developmental explanations of social exclusion. This analysis of Australian policy discourses opens up questions regarding transnational citizenship and vulnerability that warrant further comparative and empirical investigation; and it invites a rethinking of the theoretical framing of youth citizenship, which has implications for conceptualising and conducting comparative youth studies in education.     

Insights beyond neo-liberal educational practices: the value of discourse analysis

This article discusses the nature, power and effects of neo-liberal rationale in educational settings. By introducing discourse analysis of two cases, the influence of neo-liberal ideology on contemporary curricula and school programs were examined. The analysis showed that dominant discourses based on neo-liberal rationale presented themselves as “unquestionable truths” that influenced how educators interacted with others and went about their profession. The dominant discourses relied upon assertions by consensus or common conception and understanding to create an “officially” sanctioned way of thinking about education. Proponents of a particular dominant discourse argued that such sanctions were a necessary feature of an initiative or innovation, and provided a focus for energy and activism, winning teachers’ support, and conveying to the wider community a sense of purpose, action and rational planning; a clear path to salvation. On the other hand, these dominant discourses had a necessary effect in obscuring other perspectives and disallowing critique from taking place. This article argues that discourse analysis provides a platform to interrogate the dominant discourses to reveal alternative or previously unseen perspectives.     

Narrow identity resources for future students: the 21st century skills movement encounters the Norwegian education policy context

21st century skills is a global network of corporate and governmental influences that promotes competences suited to fit the future knowledge economy. Through a discourse analysis of an influential Official Norwegian Report, ‘The School of the Future. Renewal of Subjects and Competences’ (NOU 2015:8), this paper explores how ideas of 21st century skills are translated into the Norwegian education policy context. Firstly, the paper analyses the context-specific reasons for receptiveness by investigating discursive warrants. Secondly, the paper identifies how the policy document constructs a set of preferred subject positions that constitute an image of an ideal student. Thirdly, the paper investigates the discursive framing of these subject positions. We find that the policy document constructs an image of an ideal student who is creative, responsible, cooperative, engaged, self-regulated and in complete control of herself, her learning and her future. This image draws on more pronounced neo-liberal discourses, but also well-established discourses in the Norwegian context, such as social democratic progressivism. This intertwining of discourses shows how traits of homogeneity related to global ideas, as well as heterogeneity related to the Norwegian policy context, are both visible in the Norwegian translation of 21st century skills.     

Is Japanese education the “exception”?: examining the situated articulation of neo-liberalism through the analysis of policy keywords

This article builds on the author's earlier work, published in Vol. 28 No. 1 of this journal, that critiqued the Orientalist legacy in Anglo-American discussions of Japanese education. One of the manifestations of this legacy is the prevailing view among the Anglo-American observers of Japanese education that Japanese education is the “exception” to the recent global restructuring movement. This article problematizes this view by exposing a similar but differently articulated structural change in Japanese education over the past three decades. Drawing on cultural studies and critical discourse analysis, the author focuses on the two policy keywords that the Ministry of Education has consistently used by for the past three decades: kosei (individuality) and yutori (low pressure). Tracing the complex histories of articulation and rearticulation of these policy keywords, the author demonstrates how the keywords, which had been associated with progressive political struggles against the Ministry's central control of public education, were mobilized to reconstitute people's common sense about education and thus to naturalize the radical systemic change towards the neo-liberal, post-welfare settlement. In conclusion, the author discusses the implication of the study to the field of comparative and international education, calling for a more critical, reflexive engagement with the field's preoccupation with “national differences”.     

Disaster preparedness,adaptive politics and lifelong learning: a case of Japan

Preparedness for disaster scenarios is progressively becoming an educational agenda for governments because of diversifying risks and threats worldwide. In disaster-prone Japan, disaster preparedness has been a prioritised national agenda, and preparedness education has been undertaken in both formal schooling and lifelong learning settings. This article examines the politics behind one prevailing policy discourse in the field of disaster preparedness referred to as ‘the four forms of aid’ – ‘kojo [public aid]’, ‘jijo [self-help]’, ‘gojo/kyojo [mutual aid]’. The study looks at the Japanese case, however, the significance is global, given that neo-liberal governments are increasingly having to deal with a range of disaster situations whether floods or terrorism, while implementing austerity measures. Drawing on the theory of the adaptiveness of neo-liberalism, the article sheds light on the hybridity of the current Abe government’s politics: a ‘dominant’ neo-liberal economic approach – public aid and self-help – and a ‘subordinate’ moral conservative agenda – mutual aid. It is argued that the four forms of aid are an effective ‘balancing act’, and that kyojo in particular is a powerful legitimator in the hybrid politics. The article concludes that a lifelong and life-wide preparedness model could be developed in Japan which has taken a social approach to lifelong learning.     

Talking Whiteness: Representations of Social Justice in One School

This post-structural discourse analysis examines how whiteness is discursively and materially maintained and reproduced through an anti-bias discourse. It attempts to surface ways in which counter discourses are mediated within a dominant discourse such as whiteness. Understanding one school’s determined efforts to “combat oppression” and the difficulties inherent in this charge may allow for expanded notions of how schools might challenge taken for granted norms on which many visions of reform rest. Finally, taking into consideration the ways in which dominant discourses of normalization may act as a barrier to producing transformational environments for teaching and learning in K-12 schools, may make more evident the need for schools to have mechanisms that challenge normative structures, social practices, as well as create space for counter discourses to be generated.     

The Intersection Between Deep Moral Frames and Rhetorical Style in the Struggle over U.S. Immigration Reform

This essay highlights and explores a point of tension between theoretical writings on style and moral frames. Past political communication scholarship points to the importance of the feminine style in today's televisual era of politics. In this same political era, the conservative strict parent moral frame has dominated most policy debates. Surprisingly, this highly successful moral frame appears squarely at odds with the feminine style so closely connected with political success. This essay attempts to unravel this tension between styles and frames by examining discourse drawn from the 2007 debate over comprehensive immigration reform. To account for the success of conservative messages within this debate, this essay both (a) calls into question the nature of the relationship between the television medium and the feminine style and (b) expands our understanding of the discursive operation of deep moral frames by drawing a distinction between intra-familial and extra-familial policy discourse.     

Understanding reason in policy reform: engaging ‘problematic’ families

This paper seeks to examine current policy reforms that situate education as a means of addressing social inclusion. Borrowing from the work of Popkewitz and Lindblad, the paper takes the form of a cross‐disciplinary literature review that informs understanding of the relationship between educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in policy research in Australia. To do so, the author examines the assumptions, omissions and contradictions in policy direction via two problematics – the engagement problematic and the early intervention and prevention problematic – to emphasise how policy discourse produces ways of thinking about inclusion/exclusion. The author argues that discourses of engagement and intervention and prevention reinscribe each other, acting as a palimpsest which produces notions of the ‘proper’ family and ‘proper’ participation. These notions of propriety ironically exclude particular types of individuals and families by situating them outside of possibilities for ‘success’ in social and systemic participation. Therefore, the author seeks to examine the ‘systems of reason’ that enable these discursively produced notions of propriety to become normalised.     

Changing policy discourses: Constructing literacy inequalities

This paper explores the ways in which policy discourses have constructed rationales for addressing adult literacy over the last 50 years. In particular, we examine how policy positions the literacy learner as citizen within discourses of rights and equity. Taking the case of the UK, we compare two key documents produced at different historical moments. Our discourse analysis reveals a long standing discourse of individual deficit within a functional model of literacy. This is now overlaid by a discourse of social exclusion that views adult learners as entrepreneurial global citizens who must compete within a market economy.     

Contesting education policy in the public sphere: media debates over policies for the Queensland school curriculum

This paper investigates the work of media discourses on education policy in public debates over the Queensland school curriculum. It draws on theories of discourse, theories that have recently influenced the field of policy sociology, to outline a conceptualization of policy and media texts as discourses in the public sphere. In so doing, it notes the significant contribution such public discourses on education make to the policy process. The paper employs critical discourse analysis to investigate the discursive constructions of curriculum during one particular policy initiative. The analysis focuses on newspaper debates over the inclusion of a subject called Health and Physical Education (HPE) in the Queensland secondary school curriculum. The paper shows how educational policy issues were discursively constituted and contested through the construction of public discourses on education policy. In particular, it demonstrates how such public discourses worked to construct authoritative voices on educational policy. The paper concludes with a call to teachers and policymakers to seek opportunities to construct an authoritative public voice on issues of education policy.     

The European Union's discourse of ‘equality’ and its education and training policy within the post‐compulsory sector

This paper provides a critical overview of the development of European education and training policy and its relationship to the discourse of ‘equality’. This development reflects significant shifts within the European Union's discourse of economic growth and peaceful unity‐‐that is, the economic and social concerns of the European Commission. Interwoven into both these discourses is the European discourse of ‘equality’.

In the first section of the paper the historic development of the Commission's education and training policy is considered in relation to the discourses of equal opportunities and social exclusion, paying particular attention to the influence of the Action programmes for equal opportunities between women and men. This is followed by a brief section in which the recent interpretation of EC policy by the UK government is examined. In the final section the focus is on the equality discourse itself and the consequences of its application for under‐educated long‐term unemployed people. The paper concludes that although the differences between equal opportunities and social exclusion can appear as radical redefinition, they are nevertheless simply discursive shifts in a fundamentally unchanged equality discourse. Their significance, however, lies in the need for such an apparent shift.     

Understanding OECD representations of teachers and teaching: a visual discourse analysis of covers in OECD documents

OECD dominance in the international educational policy discourse in the developed regions of the world, particularly in promoting teaching policy, has been long acknowledged. While many works have explored the organisation’s verbal discourse, no study has considered exploring its visual discourse. To close that gap, we employed a visual discourse analysis on the covers of OECD documents pertaining to teachers and teaching (i.e., TALIS and ISTP). The analysis found that OECD’s covers drew on two discourses, a conservative discourse and a liberal diversity discourse. However, the latter was entangled with constructions which serve to maintain a conservative order.     

Ethnicity and education in China and Vietnam: discursive formations of inequality

This article aims to understand how ethnicity is discursively framed in national policies in China and Vietnam and argues that policy discourses affect how the ‘problem’ of ethnicity and educational inequalities is framed and how these inequalities can be addressed. The analysis shows how both Marxist and market-economy governing rationalities frame ethnic minority groups as lower status than the majority group and in need of either socially evolving to the communist ideal or assimilating into the global economic market, respectively. Using Fraser’s multi-dimensional approach to analyse discursive formations of inequality, we show how these policy discourses produce a non-ethnic economic citizen with socialist tendencies that negates cultural or social recognition and political representation. We conclude that researchers and policymakers need to consider how ethnicity is discursively framed to understand and address inequalities.     

‘It’s not fair’: policy discourses and students’ understandings of plagiarism in a New Zealand university

Plagiarism is a concept that is difficult to define. Although most higher education institutions have policies aimed at minimising and addressing student plagiarism, little research has examined the ways in which plagiarism is discursively constructed in university policy documents, or the connections and disconnections between institutional and student understandings of plagiarism in higher education. This article reports on a study that explored students’ understandings of plagiarism in relation to institutional plagiarism discourses at a New Zealand university. The qualitative study involved interviews with 21 undergraduate students, and analysis of University plagiarism policy documents. The University policy documents revealed moral and regulatory discourses. In the interviews, students predominantly drew on ethico-legal discourses, which reflected the discourses in the policy documents. However, the students also drew on (un)fairness discourses, confusion discourses, and, to a lesser extent, learning discourses. Notably, learning discourses were absent in the University policy. Our findings revealed tensions between the ways plagiarism was framed in institutional policy documents, and students’ understandings of plagiarism and academic writing. We suggest that, in order to support students’ acquisition of academic writing skills, plagiarism should be framed in relation to ‘learning to write’, rather than as a moral issue.     

The Council of Europe’s citizenship conception in ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’: a critical discourse analysis of two textbooks

This paper presents a neocommunitarian conception of citizenship identified in two textbooks of the programme ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’, organised by the Council of Europe. Critical discourse analysis is applied to the key themes of the textbooks T-Kit 7: Under construction: Citizenship Youth and Europe and Compass Manual enclosing citizenship and human rights discourses, respectively. An intra-disciplinary discussion follows drawing on critical political economy. The findings of the analysis are that the textbooks exhibit an abstract representation of social reality as well as moral relativism stemming from neoliberal communitarianism. The identification of the neocommunitarian conception of citizenship reveals the power of citizenship education today.     

Let them eat Shakespeare: prescribed authors and the National Curriculum

In this article, we examine the debate that surrounds prescribed reading lists in the English National Curriculum. In particular, we attempt to locate the role which ideas about heritage and social and moral values have played in constructing this debate. We begin by examining the English National Curriculum's origin in the 1980s as a conservative exercise in stemming cultural crisis, and the discourse about literature's role in the curriculum which this helped construct. We then examine how this discourse has influenced, and continues to influence, the educational policy of prescribing a list of authors and consider the assumptions that are embedded in this policy. Finally, we reflect upon how the material conditions of the classroom provide a site of resistance, or difficulty, for the officially sanctioned discourse concerning literature's role in the curriculum.     

Queering Literacy Teaching: Analyzing Gay-Themed Discourses in a Fifth-Grade Class in Brazil

Following queer theory and critical discourse analysis principles, my aims in this article are to analyze gay-themed discourses in literacy contexts and to suggest a way of queering literacy teaching. In the first part, I focus on ethnographically generated data from a class of fifth-graders in Brazil. The analysis shows that homoeroticism was openly discussed by the pupils in off-task classroom discourses and in focus-group interviews, but in on-task classroom discourses led by the teacher it was an issue that was not to be raised. As a consequence, I argue that there is a need for openly incorporating gay and lesbian themes into classroom discourses and for queering literacy teaching. This can be done by introducing a view of discourse as a social practice, which makes it possible to analyze the ways in which sexualities are discursively constructed, thereby implying that there are differently situated ways of constructing sexualities rather than a single essentialist manner. In the second part, I introduce principles for a pedagogic discourse analysis to which literacy teachers could make recourse in order to show the discursive nature of sexualities. This approach is exemplified by an analysis of the discursive construction, in a Brazilian magazine article, of a man as gay.     

‘Snapchat’, youth subjectivities and sexuality: disappearing media and the discourse of youth innocence

Research on youth subjectivities and disappearing media is still in its infancy. Ephemeral technologies such as Snapchat, Frankly and Wickr offer young people opportunities for discursive agency, harnessing teenage discourses of social positioning. These media facilitate social mobility in teen peer contexts by providing a medium for dynamic and shifting relationships. The transmission of digital images can enable a social flexibility that has a significant impact on youth subjectivities where discursively constructed relational identities are brokered through cyber technologies. We tackle the question ‘what discourses are evoked and produced in the discussion of disappearing social media?’ by exploring two parents’ accounts of their children’s use of this media. We also examine a discourse of innocence that surrounds teens’ use of social media and, in particular, ephemeral applications, by sexting and cyberbullying. We engage in the debate on the use of ephemeral social media to consider the discourses influencing youth subjectivities and the nature of networked publics.